Posted on 11/24/2022 8:54:22 AM PST by Salman
Black Friday is nearly upon us, but the annual online price-drop frenzy seems to be losing its shine. Numerous reports highlight that discounting may not be all it seems, and buyers would be best to shop around.
But behind the scenes, the industry is also seeing the demise of another popular craze Amazon was trying so hard to make a thing. With its voice-interface device, Alexa, the global ecommerce and tech behemoth in 2014 set in train a fashion for speech interfaces in the home, which had keen households around the world demanding their AI house guests to tell them jokes and answer trivia questions.
But why? That's just what Amazon may be wondering. According to reports, its Worldwide Digital unit, which Echo smart speakers and Alexa voice technology fall under, hit an operating loss of over $3 billion. Business Insider also claimed the vast majority of the losses were tied to Amazon's Alexa and other devices.
When asked by The Register, Amazon did not respond to this. Instead, in a statement, Amazon's senior vice president for devices and services David Limp said: "We are as committed as ever to Echo and Alexa, and will continue to invest heavily in them."
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(Excerpt) Read more at theregister.com ...
Am I being paranoid to think the deep state considers it worth it for surveillance? Could just be corporate evasiveness, but ...
3B loss?! And still investing.
It’s almost like...almost like...there’s collusion between fedzilla, deep state, and big tech. Weird.
My daughter had an astute observation. If the government had offered to put a microphone in your house 30 years ago, of course, you would have told them no. And now we are paying for the privilege of a corporation doing the exact same thing.
I just a Google 7pro. All the voice and assistant crap was the 1st things I disabled. I don’t like when the people around me talk too much. I would blast Alexa with the 12gauge.
I am certain that there is nearly endless wealth in having that ever-vigilant ear in everyone’s home.
Open Source privacy based voice assistant - https://mycroft.ai/
Can be used with the open source privacy based home automation system, home-assistant - https://www.home-assistant.io/
You sure you want a google phone?
Every device has the capability of listening in on you.
Corporations always fail to understand the complexity of human speech.
Conversational speech engages more neurological resources than any other human activity.
And when you toss in conversing with an Asian Indian English help desk, you probably need a super computer!
There are benefits to Apple, Google and Amazon for going in on smart speakers even if the speakers themselves lose money. They lock you into an ecosphere. Amazon especially gets people to buy stuff using Alexa. Those purchases likely don’t get measured to offset the cost of the device.
In Google’s case, the additional data that they sell from “hearing” transient conversation also doesn’t get recorded in the balance sheet for their devices.
Apple Siri wants to make sure Apple users have an Apple version of the product and as part of an Apple lifestyle that all make money (e.g. credit cards, watches, phones, pads, iTunes, App Store, etc.)
Paranoia is the new KEEPIN’ IT REAL.
Because they ran out of suckers right damn quick.
The rest of us refused to be surveilled in real time and feed a 5Ayes / PLA database.
Yep Business 101 or it should be.
I have an iPhone, a MacBook Air, and a Kindle Fire. I disabled the voice assistants on them when I got them. If Siri or Alexa can’t get up and go to the bathroom for me every half-hour, so I don’t have to, then there is nothing that either of them can do for me, that I can’t do myself.
” I disabled the voice assistants on them when I got them. “
You only think you disabled them ...
My daughter had an astute observation. If the government had offered to put a microphone in your house 30 years ago, of course, you would have told them no. And now we are paying for the privilege of a corporation doing the exact same thing.
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It’s a brilliant play on human psychology. Tell someone to do something, and they may resist. Tell them they have to pay for something, and especially if the something is presented as a privilege, and people will rush to buy in.
They are all the same. They all spy on you. My Moto x4 lasted 6 years. Someone will have a newer better one than this next week. My banking is secure as they tell me they can make it. Judging from the Biden non inflation I am really not worth anyone’s time to hack.
I still remember my daughters face when I said to her, “If it’s not listening to everything you say, how does it know you just said ‘Hey Google’”.
Except 30 years ago we all had phones in our house. So really nothing has changed.
Well ditto your smart phone. If the government asked us to keep a tracking device on our person 24/7 most of us would have said, "Hell no!"
Now most of us have cell phones on our person, or in close proximity, most of the time - and they get the microphone, plus tracking.
Witness the J6 folks...
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